$15 Minimum Wage increases are expected to hit our nation, coast to coast, in the near future. I am concerned that my financial sacrifices & years of educational investments to become a nurse will be highly devalued once minimum wages are doubled around the country.
I am predicting that the higher $15 minimum wages will cause costs of everything else to increase (food, rent, services). Salary earners (RNs) making above minimum wage, will not get raises, yet our cost of living will dramatically increase (eventually by double in most cases, in order to offset the higher cost of minimum wage employees). This all will be fine for minimum wage workers, but I fear that because I make above minimum wage, I will see my budget cost of living budget increase by 1/3 or more and will no longer be able to afford to pay back my student loans once all this happens.
Then comes the bad credit debt & never owning a home & never being able to retire & this snowballs into my college career has been self-destructive, God help us all ...
I would like to hear other nurses input and opinion on the matter, if nothing else but to help me from catastrophizing this ~ Thank You
Specializes in Huntingtons, LTC, Ortho, Acute Care.
I'm still paying my student loans off. And I know plenty of single mothers that are nurses and were in school raising their babies. When there is a will there is a way, if people don't want the loans then why do they deserve the extra money. They won't have bills as outrageous as the people that went to school. Is it hard YES, but there is nothing nowhere saying that they aren't allowed to try to do better. I have definitely worked very hard like everyone else on this site, and most of us came from minimum wage jobs. It is the pursuit of happiness not the hand out of happiness.
I live in SoCal and I make $30/hr. If you make over $50/hr as a new grad, you must live in the Bay Area. Most nurses in non-bay-area CA make $25-45/hr. Most nurses outside CA easily make less than $30/hr on average. I have seen job ads for RN's that pay $22-23/hr.
The way some posters refer to $15/hr, they just must not live where an apartment starts at $1,200. Forget about the high rent regions. The housing market is making a comeback in California, everything is going up again. $15/hr isn't a living wage here, or barely is with a roommate.
People who do live in the moderate to high rent areas still want their Starbucks and other *menial* services, what are we going to do with the labor force, housing camp?
TBH if you want to buy a 3Bd/2b home in a safe neighborhood, afford a horse, help your kids through college, etc., you cannot do that on a nurse's income alone in California. I could do some of those things if I was married to someone who made equal or more as me, but I definitely could not do that on my own. I don't even know how I can afford to survive on my own without taking roommates. After taxes, I get like $1500 biweekly, or approx. $3000 a month. When rent for a studio costs like $1600 a month and for a 2-bedroom apartment over $2000 a month, I would barely be getting by if I had a family and just getting by if I lived by myself. And I make a good income.
I'm living proof that you can and no you don't make a good income for your area of California. You also seem unaware of the fact that California has varying COLs. You might want to relocate where you can make 100K plus and rent a house for $1,600.
" Then you see labor shortages and wages rise (or standards fall)."
Um...labor shortages usually translate I thought into more job security and power to demand a higher wage. Also, changes in business regulation (far-reaching hand of big gov on industry) that make it easier to operate would alleviate overhead cost to help keep prices affordable for consumers. Folks really need to focus on how to make 'Living Wage' work for all collectively instead of trying to keep the have not's in place for job wage- security. It's pathetic. Trust me and in the best interest of all in society.
Specializes in Public Health, Maternal Child Health.
I'm in the Bay Area which had the first $15 minimum wage and is also the #1 highest cost of living in America. New grad RNs in Northern California start off between $45-65 per hour right off the bat. Advance practice nurses like my sister make well in the triple digits annually. I've been getting a raise of $2 per hour every year at my job and additional increase with a small promotion. I know not everyone is so lucky. I worked at above minimum wage in San Francisco for about 7 years at $14 per hour and our studio apartment in the ghetto was $1350 per month and there were days that I literally went hungry. San Francisco had a MW increase BUT they also have rent control laws so rent doesn't go up. But if you want to buy a home the median home is over 1 million dollars
anyways, I have dozens of thousands in student loans. I chose to be a nurse for the joy of it - I cannot imagine doing anything else! And hey it also happens to pay the bills enough to live paycheck to paycheck in our current 1 bedroom apartment of $1950 per month, with a 1 hour commute to work. I live here because I love the Bay Area and do not want to live anywhere else. I just accept being broke as a part of my life. I love my job, I love my city, and I'm loving life. Everything else is just details :)
Not to mention the sad reality of Industry paying minimum wage to non-minimum skilled employees out of pure greed because in our political climate they can get away with it. Be angry enough at the system and change that or shut up about folks demanding fare wage is what I say.
Yep. I live in NC and make $25/hr, been an RN for 3 years. I took a travel job in CA and made $70 an hour. You know what, I could not wait to get back to my old job. I was working in Santa Cruz, the cost of living was sky high, traffic was bad and I missed how sweet the tea and people were in the south. I don't know the answer, because yes I think we should get paid more in the south. However the hospital in CA was a mess, I'm talking dangerous people. For one it was management heavy, but when it came to actual people taking care of the patients there were not enough. Not enough pharmacests, nurses, CNAs, transporters, sitters, housekeeping, the list goes on. Two with the state mandated nurse/pt ratio there is a backlash. In NC I may have had 6 patients but I also had a CNA, a unit secretary, hospital transport, etc. In CA I had 5 patients and no support staff. I'll take the NC situation any day of the week. I know I just worked at one hospital in CA, maybe not all of them are like that.
you make over $50/hr?? I want to work where you work! I think the previous poster was saying an increase in cost of living will devalue a nurse's experience when the nurse makes a lower wage than you. In my area, as an RN I make $25/hr, which is pretty sad considering the cost of living is already high here. If the minimum wage were to increase to $15/hr, let's say, that would especially devalue the experience and wage of the nurses making even less (ie ~$20/hr).
you make over $50/hr?? I want to work where you work! I think the previous poster was saying an increase in cost of living will devalue a nurse's experience when the nurse makes a lower wage than you. In my area, as an RN I make $25/hr, which is pretty sad considering the cost of living is already high here. If the minimum wage were to increase to $15/hr, let's say, that would especially devalue the experience and wage of the nurses making even less (ie ~$20/hr).
Libby1987, I work in Traverse City, MI. However, I just moved here from Austin, TX and in ATX I made $29/hr. ...I thought $29/hr was bad until I moved to Traverse City! hah! Funny how perspective can change.
Mhsrnbsn
104 Posts
I'm still paying my student loans off. And I know plenty of single mothers that are nurses and were in school raising their babies. When there is a will there is a way, if people don't want the loans then why do they deserve the extra money. They won't have bills as outrageous as the people that went to school. Is it hard YES, but there is nothing nowhere saying that they aren't allowed to try to do better. I have definitely worked very hard like everyone else on this site, and most of us came from minimum wage jobs. It is the pursuit of happiness not the hand out of happiness.